1. Field of the Invention
Device of this method is to relieve some to all weight of eyewear from the usual pressure points about the ears and nose, especially the nose.
2. Description of the Prior Art
By being located between the eyes, the nose historically was early in the short-line of obvious places to lodge spectacles. Together with the ears, the nose soon established a triad of stably spaced points that furnished a ready platform for standardized glasses framing of a design which to this day provides mounting for aids-to-vision. On that account though, the all-too-conveniently located nose has also just as long been the primary locus of much of the pain that we associate with glasses.
Delimitation of terms In this disclosure and claims optical device does not include contact lenses, but does include other externally worn devices which characteristically intercept light before it passes into an eye, including: refractive lenses; refractive and non-refractive, transparent light-filters, both polarizing and tinted; spectacles or eyeglasses, both prescribed and over-the-counter; reading glasses and magnifiers; shades or sunglasses and fashion eyewear; and safety glasses or eyeshields--all being devices of the common heritage of popularly available ocular devices normally head-worn by the larger public. "Eyewear" encompasses the above inclusive list. However Optical device is not herein meant to include head-worn, electronic-display-imaging device which is only for viewing head-worn display of electronically processed or converted images. "Head" includes the ears and "face" includes the nose.
State-of-the-art holders of optical devices have not progressed so that they can generally be used with comfort, especially after an appreciable period of continued use. The worrisome bother, attending the nosepiece points to the weakest link in contemporary eyewear designs. The simple, ultimate reply is to completely unburden the nose.
Reminding of deep, distressed-looking indentations between the eyes, especially of oldsters, reality vaguely whispers that we might try to look past our noses, if we intend to see past them for a better way to use optical device. Discomfort is first among long-recognized disadvantages intrinsically tied to the nosepiece. Another drawback, directly linked to continued misuse and abuse of the genuinely inadequate nose, is a lack of a positive-retention capability. Device presented here solves both problems by discounting the nose as a viable basis for supporting. This counterpoised cranial-support method entails other benefits which are extensively, if not exhaustively, number-itemized under "Objects and Advantages." Among them is static and stable, very wide-ranging, vertical positionability.
Historically, according to the state of accepted art, eyewear embodied tradeoffs between retainability and comfort. Eyewear design also required juggling mutually co-exclusive interrelationships between comfort and positionability and between comfort and cost. But no similar compromise is necessary when employing concepts of counterpoised cranial-suspension into new eyewear. As a result, huge improvements in all four mentioned capabilities are at once easy. This method presents an exciting contrast of new and extended boundaries to be explored--with comfort, the most important and fundamental consideration of all, being enhanced the most, because the easily disquieted nose can be completely unburdened from being an overlooked, impossible to ignore, raw source of sore concern.
Whereas longstanding attachment to the nose has precluded even timorous attempts to break free of it, two other areas of the face, and the nose as well, have been field for effort, but yielded only marginally improved nosepieces or otherwise thoroughly disappointing, generally adjunctive siblings to the nosepiece but adapted to other parts of the face, either above or below the eyes--thus introducing what could be called cheekbonepieces and the browpiece. But being akin to nosepieces, both have their set of kindred deficiencies. We were on the right track--the path that lead away from nasal means--but halted too close into the journey to see of the first signs that read of cranial-suspension generally and therefore of balanced and dynamically balanced suspension. Just the same, when using glasses for longer periods, (as when on a trip facing toward the sun) good embodiments of either type of above-mentioned invention which rely less on the nose would certainly be a boon toward maintaining a placid equilibrium of inner tranquillity and good humor. If some rendition of my invention were available though, both of those types of device would be as unnecessary as nose-pads on the glasses would be altogether superfluous and primarily just in the way.
Nose-sized, nose-cushions might be the only fix still left untried for facial-support. But before we resort to such extremes, we might adopt this comprehensive, very workable answer to the host of facepiece-related problems and begin to rest our eyewear further back on our heads--if we are willing to use them.
Secure, comfortable, and worry-free eyewear support can be accomplished by connecting to the bridge of a glasses with a string strung across the top of the head to a mass which weighs about the same as the glasses in front and which hangs behind the head. That deceptively simple example is just one device which employs dynamically counterpoised cranial-suspension, but it also illuminates basic theory behind other embodiments of this innovative concept--besides being a practical and easy alternative to miserably disturbing glasses maddeningly gripping the nose, or sometimes worse, eyewear left haphazardly and precariously perched upon the nose, and not seizing the nose, but slip-sliding down again and again.
Having been honed by centuries of incremental development, popular eyewear is still handicapping when limited for use by itself. If the familiar, tried-and-staid, readily available glasses is conjoined with device of this disclosure, it is liberated from essentially depending on the nose for an unhappily qualified support. The far-sighted inventor applies such strictly conservative philosophy of primary functionality toward personal optical implement to find indispensable a popped-out lens from cheap reading glasses (a version of the ancient ocular) and carries one always, even in the the key-pocket of swim wear.
In a demonstration trick, a volunteer who agrees not to use hands, can be pinned to a surface and rendered completely helpless by a sewing thread stretched across the bridge of the nose. Even with the the best of nosepieces, since the nose is so tender, pressure which is perceivable but perhaps untaxing at first, can get stressful to the point of impairment after a prolonged period of necessity with eyeglasses. Furthermore the steep, slanted sides of the average nose causes the real force on the flesh to be much more than the weight supported. Actual, pertinent multiplying factor is the cosecant of incline from vertical of the facial surface upholding eyewear: between two and three, typically (times weight.)
The most ideally fitted apparatus descends the the sloping nose ridge, on its own, partially because of the slipperiness of the nose, which is liberally lubricated with skin oils and perspiration accumulation under the pressure-cooker conditions beneath nose pads, even in cooler environments. With rapid head motion such as on jostling transportation, some glasses fall. To the knowledge of the inventor, any previous attempt toward securing against such dynamic disturbance introduced at the same stroke another source of eventual discomfort. But cranially-suspended, balanced eyewear absolutely braces against gravity, independent of the nose. And being freed of imbalance, it stays comfortably put. Its natural properties deal with up-and-down movement as they handle gravity. Friction, either already present or arranged, might be useful however, to dampen an angular-inertial characteristic about an ear-to-ear axis of some of the bascule device within this (head-borne, highly balanced) genre of devices, in order to allay its rocking tendency during quick nodding-motions.
Much prior art that was intended to remedy conventional eyewear, typically merely mitigates it or just postpones the insideous anguish which, after a matter of minutes, begins to emanate from the nose. But that anguish is mostly due to a buildup of suppressed reaction, a distracting culmination of nervous responses to the burr-under-the-saddle nasal sensations that dominate during bouts with eyewear.
The dim inescapable prospect of prolonged glasses-use, tragically often nearly debilitates. Precious mental energy is lost controlling subconscious agitation which spreads anyway, throughout the nervous system of the glasses-distressed, not to mention unhappily affected, fellow pilgrims who though personally innocent of bothersome glasses, yet labor only once removed from such glasses-users, who while they deny their own suffering, might remain largely oblivious concerning the interconnectedness of the entire communal network, so that they try the patience of those who are otherwise personally eroded by still others who were also crossed, perhaps directly, perhaps as well, through several other souls, variously removed.
Nosepiece-improvement device generally increases the load bearing area on the nose, includes other face, or provides better formed or conforming nosepieces. But due to deficiencies of using the face to support, the resulting glasses also offer the same-old, inherent limitations. The wearer is therefore, destined to experience a milder or delayed, but eventually incessant and merciless, constant searing of nosepiece-pestered skin; and being visited by that extra travail, know reduced personal reserves--all after the certain onset of acute, highly localized, dermotropic trauma. Incidental to a highly conforming or form-fitted nosepiece, the same patch of skin sees uninterrupted strain, without even the momentary respite for repair afforded by less complicated and costly glasses which do not remain in place so well.
As early as 1870, U.S. Pat. No. 104,216 to Sickels described a static cranial-suspension that was totally independent of the nose. However head-borne, gravitationally balanced and dynamically counterpoised device of this present method delivers stark advantages over all device that hangs static. Being statically balanced or weight-compensated lets much of my device have definite vertical positionability. Handy, on-face, out-of-line-of-sight stowage is possible much more extensively than with any of the following static-suspension gear, some of which do not provide in-use stowage at all, and however nasally liberating they all are, they are also inflexibly tied to encumberingly unwieldy, fixed suspension: Eason's U.S. Pat. No. 758,629 (1904) and U.S. Pat. No. 1,238,496 (1917) to Comer (both these devices support very similarly across the cranial crown, but lacking weight compensation, both also depend on a head-gripping method to unburden the nose); U.S. Pat. No. 1,660,896 (1926) to Tallman and Tanksley; U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,051 (1979) to Van Teim et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,367 (1986) to Jean, Jr. et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,189 (1989) to Duggan.
Devices according to Die Casting of England's Pat. No. GB 1,158,457 (1969) depend on weights for support. But with their scheme, since the weights create an asymmetry by not being similarly offset, there is backward pull on the front, instead of upward, causing device of their method to press the glasses to the face with a pull which is equal to the combined weight that dangles behind the ears; while glasses weight also bears downward with the same force on the face that would prevail alone if unweighted, regularly rigid ear-extensions were used.
Endeavors specifically to solve the bridge of the nose conundrum are: U.S. Pat. No. 3,515,467 (1968); U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,885 (1976) to Aronson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,131,341 (1978); U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,649 (1991) to Smith; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,638 (1996) to Donner. Such nosepiece art typically mentions the word "comfort," even when comfort was not the primary goal. But Hurst specifically attempts to alleviate discomfort by using self-adjusting nose pads in conjunction with a brow rest: U.S. Pat. No. 2,547,467 (1951). O'neil in U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,334 (1980) stated objectives of comfort, low-cost, simplicity and adjustable, non-slip, positionability. All their techniques combined would fail to furnish any one of those six mentioned benefits as well as this method accomplishes each and all of them, because while those efforts were elementally entangled with trying to find a viable footing on the face, the eyewear-support method presented here is both better balanced and it altogether shunts past uncomfortable and unsure facial support, in favor of solid, sound and certain, head-based support.
The holder of U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,422 probably gets the best stability possible, (from nosepiece support means) via custom-molding and with a professional-adjustment-and-fitting process. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,524 (1989) Borsos, notes inadequacies of resilient contact pads, but nevertheless, tries to achieve non-slip comfort through on-nose, pliably compliant strips. Marly in U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,470 (1981) realistically only seems to aspire to delay the onset of nose discoloration, which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,729 (1988, to Ruffen) as superficial, temporary skin damage [the implied capacity of his device to redistribute weight to the ears is directly disputed here, however.] Both then undertake to reinvent nasal support. At least their single, saddle-type devices remove from the nose, the vicious, pinch-biting effect of nose pads in pairs, while at the same time however, lowering the glasses' ability of to stay in place. But nasal support means should finally be discredited, and hopefully totally disregarded hereafter as a sole, primary, or even secondary means for holding glasses. This emphatically more cerebral method obviates the necessity to stick all sorts of visual stuff upon the nose. Therefore it is a veritable panacea for the worst of problems attached to glasses.
Rather than reaching absolutely outmoded obsolescence, nosepieces might be incorporated for convenience of short-period usage and redundancy. Even some of the most complex, self-adjusting examples of nosepiece-craft have, by ingenuity of manufacture, acquired an off-the-shelf substitute to simplicity. Their mutability suggests that they will be as adaptive to demands of the future as developments warrant.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,263 (1968) Allen provides limited, in-line-of-sight, positive repositionability, as long as the nosepiece stays put--a decidedly problematic proposition with nosepieces in general. By contrast, certain simple counterpoised cranial-suspension device positively and comprehensively accomplishes effortless, infinitely variable, positive vertical-positionability, from below line-of-sight to above.
Among other problems directly addressed in the prior art, as associated with using the only device generally available then to hold up glasses, are medically significant conditions of the ear or nose support areas. Thus far though, nothing nearly so successfully, so comprehensively solves, all at once, so many of the nuisances usually associated with eyewear as counterpoised cranial suspension does, while removing a myriad of minuses and inconveniences that all tie directly to conventional eyewear.
Perhaps it is amplifying to note two conditions under which the method tends to fail: in strong blasts of air from generally rearward and with upside-down gravity.
Going all the way back, for comforting reassurance of precedent, history reveals a progression of improvement in the means of holding instruments that intercept light before it enters an eye. Progress happened by increasingly adapting the apparatus to the user, beginning with a single, finger-held, ground and polished, glass lens becoming the monocle, by migrating from the hand to the musculature of the ocular orbit. Later a pair of appropriately spaced lenses became, in the hand, the lorgnette, and on the nose, pincers which in turn, in a breakthrough for increased stability and retention, acquired ear extensions. That is where a pre-modern, stagnant configuration essentially froze into a notoriously successful contrivance of remakably limited design. Perhaps from being accustomed to them, such spectacles still seem to still seem to look smart, even to the post-modern eye. Contacts were a giant leap in some respects, not in others.
We have toiled under and tussled with trying to tolerate antiquated eyewear long enough that another step of improvement now appears in the order of the march. To hope to know that the next generation of spectacles support has arrived is to help awaken to the merits of this invention.